All That's Left
by Rat
Summary: Episode Tag, Season 3: Episodes 5-7. They've lost so much. Sometimes it's difficult to find something left to believe in, sometimes it isn't difficult at all. (Daryl/Carol)
1. Need To Be Doing

**Part One of Three**

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_AN: Edited because I am never happy when I reread something. There were things I wanted to smooth out and adjust. Sorry, I didn't mean to have to repost it but I zigged where I should have zagged in the document manager._

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They lost so much.

Lori, T-Dog, Carol.

Maggie washed her hands in a bucket of rain water. So much blood. She felt like her skin would never be clean. Every time she closed her eyes she saw it. She could hear it, and feel it.

"Nope no way, not her. We ain't losing nobody else, I'm going for a run."

"I'll back you up." She needed to be doing something. Something other than thinking and feeling.

That was why she needed to go with Daryl to find the baby formula. For Lori. To take her mind off of Lori.

They'd lost so much. The hum of the motorcycle engine made talking impossible. She didn't want to talk. She felt comfortable not talking with Daryl.

She felt sad for Daryl. She knew he'd cared for Carol. She felt sad for everyone. So many things they'd been through together, they were all a family. She felt sad for Carl especially, what he did for his Mom. And the baby. What kind of life was that child going to have?

They'd make the prison safe. Things would get better. They had to.

A bump in the road made her tighten her arms around Daryl for a moment and she felt him tense. Her eyes itched and everything was... she shut her eyes against the onslaught of feelings threatening to overwhelm her and pushed them down. She was doing something important. _We ain't losing nobody else._

They grabbed everything they could carry from the daycare and marked the location on the map just in case they needed to go back for more later on.

Maggie scanned the side of the road as they sped past. Everything was quiet and deceptively peaceful.

And then Daryl stopped.

"Something wrong?"

"No." He turned off the engine. "Get off."

She slid off and stood on the side of the road. There were no walkers in sight. "Is there something wrong with the bike?"

"No."

Maggie stared at him. "What are you doing?" He was the one who picked up a doll to bring back for the baby. Daryl wouldn't leave her stranded. He frowned and stared really hard at the trees on the left.

"Are you okay?" She asked him.

"Uh huh." He cleared his throat and pushed down the kickstand. He took a few steps towards the tree line and looked back at her uncertainly. "I gotta..." He looked like he was about to say something else before suddenly switching gears and changing his mind. "I gotta take a piss."

"Oh." Maggie watched him walk away. "I'll wait here." She added lamely.

He was gone a few minutes and when he got back she didn't ask any questions.

"Let's go, we're wasting daylight." He snapped and mounted the bike. She didn't bother reminding him he was the one who had stopped in the first place.

At the end of the day she sat up in the watch tower with Glenn, her hand in his. She watched the sky turn from blue to orange to red, and thought about all the sun sets she'd watched back at the farm, and how far away that old life was now. She thought about her mother, and her step mother, and brother, her cousins, and her friends; all of whom were dead now.

And she thought about Lori.

She watched the lone figure walk out into the field and stand by the grave. Carol's grave. He knelt down and placed something small and white at the base of the marker. She remembered Carol telling her a story one night while they were on the road. Everyone was tired and hungry and scared. She remembered Carol watching Daryl while she spoke, and how he wouldn't meet her eye. It's a story about hope, she'd said. She told the story about the lost children along the trail of tears and white roses blooming where the Cherokee mother's tears had fallen. Never lose hope.

Maggie watched Daryl kneel at the grave and then stand up and walk away, and she squeezed Glenn's hand and looked back out towards the setting sun.


	2. Thank You

**Part Two of Three**

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_AN: Edited because I am never happy when I reread something. There were things I wanted to smooth out and adjust. Sorry, I didn't mean to have to repost it but I zigged where I should have zagged in the document manager. _

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Her knife.

No body.

He needed to do this.

Daryl stabbed the knife down into the floor, over and over. The door continued its soft banging against the body laying in front of it. Constant. Maddening. He got up and kicked the door. He walked to the right, and to the left. _Just do it already._ Deep breath. She wouldn't want to be left that way.

She wouldn't have wanted to…

He kicked the body out of the way, threw open the door and…

He was ready.

And she was there. Daryl felt his breath catch. _Carol._ There was blood on her, she was exhausted, but her eyes were clear and she was alive.

She was so light. He carried her back to the cellblock and lied her down on a bed. He ran his hands down her arms, inspecting. He patted her legs. No blood. No bites, no scratches. Her arms were clean. Daryl backed out of the cell and grabbed a bottle of water off the shelf. He uncapped it and gently lifted her head and put the bottle to her lips. She drank and coughed a little. Daryl propped her up a bit higher, using his body to support her back and his other arm wrapped around her shoulders to keep her steady.

Slowly, she drank.

"I'll get you some food." He moved slightly, but she reached up and weakly grabbed his wrist. He stopped moving.

"Thank you." There was barely any sound to her voice, and he only knew what she said because he'd been looking at her lips.

"Don't say that." He whispered.

There were too many feelings going through him at once and he couldn't sort them. He was happy and pissed off and he wanted to smile and start screaming curses all at once. The pain in his chest from when he'd been trying to gather up the courage to open the damn door wasn't going anywhere, and it twisted into a mixture of anger and guilt buried deep as a knife because he hadn't tried hard enough to look for her.

But here she was and he was so relieved to have her back and his head ached from the cacophony of everything warring in his mind.

Daryl huffed out a frustrated breath. "Save your thanks for someone who deserves it."

She wiped at her eyes and he helped her take another drink of water. "Let's get you cleaned up." He pulled his wrist out from her grasp, and helped her lay down. Then he went and got a bowl of water and a cloth, came back and gently started wiping the blood off her head and her chest. She closed her eyes while he worked. He was afraid to hurt her though, and so he went about it slow and careful. There were some nasty scrapes on her forehead. He changed the water and dabbed antiseptic on it.

He took a pause when he was done, and she opened her eyes just staring at him, and he stared back at her for what felt like forever. Then, on impulse, he leaned forward and quickly pressed his lips to her temple. He leaned back and her eyes followed him the entire way. "You did really good, must have fought like a wildcat to survive like you did."

She smiled, and he let the corner of his mouth twitch just a little bit into a grin.

"Everyone's going to happy to see you."

He would never underestimate this woman again.


	3. Nine Lives

**Part Three of Three**

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_AN: Edited because I am never happy when I reread something. There were things I wanted to smooth out and adjust. Sorry, I didn't mean to have to repost it but I zigged where I should have zagged in the document manager._

* * *

Sitting in the gloom wasn't helping. She had enough of the darkness. Her memories were fuzzy after losing T-Dog, and honestly, she didn't want to remember them. There wasn't anything about the experience she wanted to dwell on. The simple fact was that she was found. It was a good memory and it was vivid. It was something she could hold onto.

It was time to get out of the damn prison and go outside and breathe some fresh air. Beth insisted on doing everything herself and even seemed to have taken on the role as caregiver for lil'asskicker. Everyone wanted Carol to take time to rest, but Carol couldn't take the time knowing there was something she needed to do.

Rick told her T-Dog and Lori each had graves marked outside.

_We bury the ones we love._

They'd lost so many friends already, and there never seemed to be any end in sight; just periods of stillness until the next horror began. After the initial shock when she saw the baby and learned about Lori, she'd just felt numb. The pain of loss had become her constant companion and she needed to remember it was okay to grieve and let go. T-Dog died in a horrible way, and Lori too. Seeing their graves might or might not help her come to terms with that, but she knew she needed to try.

Good memories were difficult to find sometimes, but they were there.

It felt good to be up and moving and that first breath of fresh air was beyond refreshing even though she still felt weak and unsteady. Carol stepped outside and glanced up at the guard tower where Daryl was keeping watch. Knowing he was up there watching made her feel safe.

It was a beautiful day, one of those days with only a couple of puffs of clouds in the sky and a light breeze in the air. On these days she would take long walks while Sophia was in school. She would walk down to the park and... it felt like another lifetime.

The markers stood out against the otherwise flat grounds, but there weren't two of them, there were three. A cold fear clenched her stomach, who did she miss? A mental checklist of the faces of her friends flashed through her head, and she knew she hadn't forgotten anyone. Who was the third?

Detail became clear the closer she got. Three markers made of scraps of wood tied together into little crosses.

Carol bowed her head and recited a bible verse she'd learned long ago. Even though she didn't know what to believe anymore. _"He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away."_

T-Dog. There was no name, but someone had placed a pile of stones in the grass, and on top of that a key chain bearing the name of the church he'd once belonged to.

Lori. An effort had been made to collect some of the flowering weeds growing near the fence and had scattered them at the foot of the cross.

The third grave was marked with a small half circle of white stones with a white flower in the middle. The edges of the petals were already drying and wilted, but Carol had no trouble recognizing it for what it was. The Cherokee Rose. She didn't need to guess who'd put that there.

"Didn't realize you'd be out and about already. I meant to take that down before you'd see it."

Carol didn't look up. Daryl stepped around her, pulled the marker out of the ground, and tossed it out into the field of tall grass. He scattered the semi circle of stones forming the first letter of her name into the dirt with his shoe. "There ain't no one buried here."

But she rescued the rose. "I'll keep this."

He was glaring at her again. An expression she remembered at one time interpreting differently before she got to know him. It wasn't an expression of hate or disdain, just his confusion over emotions that she now understood he had no idea how to process. She smiled and he frowned even deeper.

"What did you bury here?" She asked, and watched his eyes return to the mound of dirt in front of them. "Someone went through the effort to dig a hole for something."

"You scarf. We found it next to..." He looked over at T-Dog's grave. "We found it and assumed."

"I didn't realize you were so attached to it." She joked, and finally earned a slight smile from him in response.

"I'm just glad that you weren't. I don't know how many of those nine lives you've got left."


End file.
